Counterorder: Does Bergamo now prefer the store to large hypermarkets?

"Iperexit" is the formula patented by Fisascat to emphasize the metamorphosis underway on the planet of large retailers and the implications on the work that this brings with it.

"It is the escape from a format that has now assumed dimensions no longer undervaluable even in our province – he claims Alberto Citerio, segretario general of Fisascat Cisl Bergamo –. The gigantism of commerce has reached its peak in the previous decade and is now looking for new recipes to get out of a crisis of this format which in recent years has led to a loss of 30% of jobs ".

How to manage the conversion of large sales areas, from 6,000 square meters upwards, has become a priority for all chains, their survival is of course. After the "inauguration hangover" of the early 2000s, in the last five years the new openings in the province of Bergamo were a dozen new Discount stores and as many medium-sized supermarkets. No more Hyper.

"The Conad – Auchan affair is the sad confirmation: 23 very large stores, half of the Auchan Hypermarkets, have already been classified as" exuberant "by the incoming company, resulting in an estimated loss of over 3000 jobs – goes on Citerio -. Overall, there are almost 120 shops that are not interesting for Conad's companies, new chain owners, for whom they are looking for possible third-party buyers; while for large surfaces, about twenty, which will be acquired instead, reductions of the sales area are expected from 30 to 50%. The adhesion of the Bennet sales network, 63 hypermecatives with 7000 employees, to the Vege Group is another operation that is part of an overall reorganization of the sector ".

According to data from a research Mediobanca also referring to the situation in Bergamo, in ten years, there was a 30% decrease in the sector's employees; productivity fell by 22%; the total sales area does not grow anymore; more than half of consumers prefer to shop at home, and independent specialist shops have the highest satisfaction index (47%).
In this context, the discounters have recorded the best average annual sales growth: + 9.6%, while the network of retail outlets of the large-scale distribution as a whole has been reduced by 0.6%.

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In 2018, the discounters occupy a market share of 18.5%. In 10 years they have grown by 5%, and in the areas where a new discount was opened, hypermarkets have registered a negative decline of 3%. Also in Bergamo, in the budgets of the big chains, we read that at the end of 2017, large retailers had an increase in turnover of 0.6%, "traditional supermarkets" by 24.2, Discounts by 44.3%.

Regarding employment, in the Hyper from 2013 to 2017 the figure is slightly down, in Discounts it has risen by almost 50%, with Eurospin, Md, Aldi and Lidl that even in Bergamo they are implementing an important offensive strategy, with dozens of new openings and expansions.

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"Shops like the Bergamo Hypermarket in Auchan were 10 years old and nearly 300 employees, today they don't reach 180 – continues Citerio -. From the employment point of view the jobs lost in the Hypermarkets have been absorbed by the new openings, generating a positive balance yes, but far from what is the potential of the sector ".

“In short, we are moving towards a continuous and“ scientific ”reduction of space, in search of a new perspective of supply and sale. The sector is reconverting so as not to succumb. therefore – summarizes Citerio – a new era is opening, which also sees the return to the neighborhood shop: stores with a surface area of ​​no more than 800 square meters; preference for the short chain; lighter trolley, to avoid waste and reduce consumption; with consumption habits that go from the weekly maxi-expense, to the daily mini-shopping, with fresh and very freshly served counter, organic products, km 0 and specialized areas ”.

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And here, for the union, the employment front opens up: "In a sector that knows a metamorphosis so important the role of human work and its specific and non-reproducible creativity can still make a difference; a clientele, more and more oriented to consume consciously, cannot but seek in the buying experience a stimulating opportunity able to increase their knowledge. Work in the large-scale retail trade is not just a relational capacity, but, increasingly, it will have an irrepressible component of professionalism closely connected to the ability to "explain" the product ".

There Fisascat believes that continuing education, in order to contribute programmatically to the re-composition of the skills of female and male retailers, must become an individual right for each employee.

"Iperexit – concludes the secretary Fisascat – will produce profound changes to the structure of large-scale distribution which today employs half a million workers in Italy; about 6000 in the Bergamo area; a proactive and participatory role of the trade unions can facilitate the radical transformation of the sector in a logic of responsibility and solidarity ".